


(D)rift Away

by 27dragons, monobuu, tisfan



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Mutants, Asexual Reproduction (mentioned), Canon-Typical Violence, M/M, Oral Sex, Post-Apocalypse, Sex, Soldiers, Winged Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-24 23:07:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20366611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/27dragons/pseuds/27dragons, https://archiveofourown.org/users/monobuu/pseuds/monobuu, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tisfan/pseuds/tisfan
Summary: Tony had managed to put off serving his mandatory five-year term with the Rift Guard for a long time, but it finally came due. Of course, as the head of Stark Industries and a mechanical genius, he was promised that he’d serve his time among the engineers, developing weapons and armor to help the rest of the Guard withstand the Rifters’ frequent attempts to reclaim the foothold they’d once held, beyond the Wall. He certainly didn’t expect to be shuffled in with the front-line grunts. Or to be partnered with -- what even the hell -- an actual Rifter.It’s just a fairy tale that Rifters eat people. Right?





	(D)rift Away

“Cadet _Stark_!” someone barked, the harsh military tones seeming as loud as gunfire, crackling through the Magazine. Scientists, engineers, and other military-adjacent contractors dropped into a sudden silence as the squad leader -- Tony wasn’t sure what his name was, or even that squad leader was the correct rank. He hadn’t bothered to learn any of those things, certain that they weren’t important to him, at least.

Tony rolled his eyes at the engineer he’d been talking to, ruffled his wings a bit to settle them more comfortably against his back, and turned around. “Present and accounted for,” he drawled.

“Late and wandering, more like,” the Squad leader barked. “You’re due in orientation tent A7 twenty minutes ago. That’s two hours KP. Now get your ass over there.” 

Tony glanced back at the engineers and scientists, but they’d all scurried off to other corners of the room. Didn’t want to get caught talking to the mutie cadet who’s already in trouble. He puffed out a breath and strode past the squad leader in search of tent A7, wherever that was.

The Rift Guard -- a special unit set up to guard the gateway between Earth and the portal where the alien invasion had stormed through decades ago -- was made up of some volunteers, but mostly the various mutations and half-Rifters that were left over from part of the war. There was something about Riftlands that was… contagious. Humans exposed to too much Rift radiation developed strange abilities, extra sensory perceptions, strength, dexterity, longevity. Or, in Tony’s case, a pair of black and red wings that draped out of his shoulder bones like a fallen angel.

Physically, the mutants were the best qualified to fight the Rifters, able to match them in strength and abilities, where regular baseline humans were completely overwhelmed.

That was the stated reason that the Rift Guard was made up -- mandatory five year service -- of drafted mutants. 

The real reason, of course, was political. No one really trusted the mutants. And the death rate for the border skirmishes was… extraordinarily high.

But there were some pure humans, weapon engineers and doctors. Most of the field command were pure humans, doped up every day on antimutagen drugs.

Drugs that hadn’t been invented yet when Tony’s mutation had begun to show. Sometimes Tony wondered -- if they’d been able to reverse his mutation, or at least halt it before it amounted to more than a few extra bones under the skin and muscle of his back -- maybe his father wouldn’t have been so cold, so demanding.

A7 was filled with recruits, most of the same guys he’d ridden up on the bus with. There were millions of acres of empty battlefield around the Rift, uninhabited, tainted and corrupted. No one went there anymore.

There hadn’t been an actual full scale battle since Tony was in middle school, an outcast even then. Or so the reports went. Contained to the Wall. 

“Welcome to weapons training, Cadent Stark,” someone said, sarcastically. “If we can impose on your time, just for a few hours?”

“Oh, I suppose so,” Tony said. “What do you need, someone to demonstrate the latest Stark offerings? I mean, SI has people for that, but I can give the presentation if--”

“Sit down, Cadet,” the squad leader barked. “Everyone else has paired up, so-- your partner’s over there.”

There was no mistaking the man sitting in the corner, by himself, for anything other than a Rifter. He was surrounded by a cloud of dark red mist that pooled by his feet and reached up his legs. Tall -- taller than most humans -- and built like a brick shithouse. His thick, brown hair was done up in warbraids, each one marked by a bead at the end, declaring his kill-count. They were silver beads; Tony translated that to more than a hundred dead at his hand.

A Rifter weapon leaned on the table next to him, some sort of scythe-and-chain thing with a heavy, spiked weight.

Tony glanced around the room. The rest of the cadets were like him, mutants. No question why the Rifter was the only one without a partner, then. Tony took a deep breath and walked over to sit next to the big man. “So, I miss anything important?”

The Rifter had a low, growly sort of voice, weirdly pleasing to the ear, and he spoke English with an accent. Which made sense, really. Except that Tony’d never actually heard about a full Rifter who wasn’t a prisoner of war. And most of them willed themselves dead -- it was hard to keep prisoners who could control their bodies so absolutely. A sort of psychic cellular power. They could just… stop breathing. “Weapon safety and quartermaster request forms,” he said. “We break into pairs and we’re supposed to learn to fight with knives. _Knives_.” He laughed and everyone in the room turned to stare, as he patted his polearm-scythie--thing. Primitive but terrifying.

“Knives,” Tony repeated, dumbfounded. “How did I end up in here? I’m supposed to be in engineering and development.”

“Knives aren’t _useless_,” the Rifter said. “Killed my first Aryx with a knife when I was just out of the creche.” He gave a level stare to the nearest batch of cadets, who all seemed to find something very urgent to do with their forms. “Did you get that engineering assignment on your papers? Set a big store by your papers, you humans.”

“What? I don’t know, I didn’t really look. I mean, I’m _Tony Stark_; where else are you going to put me, now that my number is up?”

The Rifter blinked at him, eyes huge and silver. “Is that supposed to mean something? You’re a _cadet _now.”

“Yeah, yeah, but they keep telling us the whole point is to keep the gate closed. I mean, I know it’s not actually the _whole_ point, but it’s at least _part_ of it. You’d think they’d put us where we could be the most use.”

“Uh-huh,” the Rifter said. “Ain’t nothing you can do, until the paperwork comes through. Might as well know how to defend yourself. See if you can do something with a knife aside from stab yourself.” He licked full lips, giving Tony a rather disturbingly direct stare.

“Yeah, sure, why not. Use a knife to defend myself against someone almost twice my size; that’ll go well, I’m sure.” Tony’s brain-to-mouth filter gave out in a shower of sparks. “You don’t eat people, do you?”

The Rifter rolled his eyes, summoning his polearm to his hand with a flick of his fingers. “Sometimes,” he said. “Why, you got salt?”

Tony stared. There were stories about the Rifters, always, each more horrific than the last, but Tony hadn’t really paid them a lot of attention. He figured it was just the government doing what it always did, during a war: spreading propaganda about the enemy. But Jesus, looking up into those glittering silver eyes, at the wicked edge of that strange blade... “What?”

“I ate lunch already,” the Rifter said. “You’re safe for today.”

“Well that’s... comforting.” Tony glanced around the room again, and slumped lower into his seat. “You got a name?”

“Yeah,” the Rifter said, then licked his teeth for a moment, before saying, “Bucky.”

Tony sputtered out a laugh. “Really?”

Bucky squeezed his hand around his weapon, strange clicks and whirrs coming from his arm. Tony had thought it was armor, but the more he looked at it, the more it seemed some sort of part of the Rifter’s body, mechanical, but moving at the Rifter’s thoughts. “Close enough. It means _the death that comes from the shadows_, in my language.”

“Really? Because in my language, it sounds like something you’d name a particularly fluffy and cute dog.” Shit, Tony’s mouth was going to get him thrown off the Wall, one day.

“And yet, your name is _Tony Stark_?” Bucky asked, reaffirming. “Yeah. Come on, Morsel. Let’s get to work.”

***

Listening to the complaints as he got in line, the tray full of mashed this and squashed that and scrambled other things, Bucky rolled his eyes. Humans really didn’t know how good they had it. He picked out a few of the packets of purple and red spreads that went on the flatbreads, a pat of fake butter, and grabbed his thermos of coffee.

The humans tried not to crowd him, especially in the chow hall, which was good. Bucky didn’t want to hurt any of them by stepping on them by accident.

He gazed around the tent, trying to pick a place where he could sit and _eat_. Most of the tables were packed, or half full, and when he glanced in that direction, more humans hastily sat down, closing ranks against him.

Except for the little morsel. He was sitting by himself, poking at a device, those black wings quivering down his back. There was a wide, open space around him, not just to make room for the wings, but in some sort of rejection.

Back through the Rift, someone like Tony Stark would have been amazing, praised, practically _worshipped _for those wings. Bucky wondered if he could actually use them. No one with a mutation like that would have been thrust through the Rift, a common soldier. 

“Mind if I sit?” Bucky asked, stradling the bench across from Tony Stark, not planning to take no for an answer. It was sit here, or sit by himself.

“Knock yourself out.” He poked at his device some more, mostly ignoring the tray in front of him.

Bucky scowled. “Was that a threat?” He poked through his food, and the tools they gave him to eat it with. He scooped the yellow stuff onto a piece of flatbread and rolled it up. The whole thing went into his mouth and he chewed thoughtfully, trying to identify flavors, but like all human food, it was just… _good_. He couldn’t tell coffee from hot chocolate, just that both things were sweet and contained illegal stimulants. He didn’t know eggs from cheese, just that they were chewy and delicious.

Humans did not know how good they had it.

“What?” Tony Stark looked up, startled. “No, it’s just a saying.” He put his device away and pushed his tray halfway across the table, making space for him to fold his arms. “You really like this swill, huh?”

“It’s _amazing_,” Bucky said. “Different flavors and textures. And this--” He waved his thermos at Tony Stark. “_Coffee_. Even the Dorasch has nothing like this. No wonder we invaded.”

Tony Stark snorted. “Sure, why not. God forbid you open a trade mission or something.”

“The Dorasch did not expect this field to be _infested _with… humans,” Bucky said. It had taken decades of trying to stamp out the infestation before anyone even considered the idea that humans might be the dominant life on their planet, that they were, if somewhat rudimentary, intelligent and working together. Suggesting that humans had a language, culture… was heresy.

Bucky had reason to know.

“Nice to know where we stand, I guess.” Tony Stark’s eyes flickered over Bucky, lingering on his arm, but not missing much. “So what is this, some kind of anthropological expedition, then? Living amongst the animals to better understand how to control and kill us?”

Bucky shoveled more of the-- eggs? he thought someone had called them -- into his mouth. “Would you chop down the tree, if you could speak with it?”

“Me personally, or the humans as a race? Because we’re not good at sharing.”

“You speak,” Bucky pointed out. “You have a name. You have, presumably, clan that would miss you, if you did not return to them. My code, personally. Forbids treating such… persons. As _animals_.” Not that there were many of his clan left, and making him Outcast was as simple as swearing to the Eight Points of the Night. 

If humans had been mindless and dull as they were portrayed, Bucky would have been just as happy to slaughter them, hives of them. But they weren’t. And when no one would listen, he was made Outcast and sent to live among them, if he loved them so well.

Well, love wasn’t exactly how he felt. Annoyed contempt, most of the time.

But he had coffee and he had a _cheese and egg sandwich._

Which, really, was worth quite a lot of annoyance.

Tony Stark was looking at Bucky, something like curiosity in those golden-brown eyes, his wings shifting and rustling. “Okay. So you... decided to stand with us, against your own people?”

_Decision _was a little more… solid than what had actually happened. But it sounded good. “Close enough,” Bucky said. “Thrown out for being insane, and heretical, and a traitor. Where else was I going to go?”

Tony Stark actually recoiled a little, his gaze dropping away again. “Oh. Right, yeah, uh. Didn’t mean to pour salt on that wound.”

“Pour salt--” Bucky said, turning his arm over a few times to look at it. It had healed well enough, really, and the formed device worked to his satisfaction. Why would he… “This is another… figure of speech, then?”

“Hm? Uh, yeah. It means to cause unnecessary pain. More or less.”

Humans were so strange, Bucky decided. When was pain ever _necessary_? It was why the Dorasch had invented War, to give an outlet. War, on the other hand, did not appear to be a unique discovery, however. Humans were pretty good at it, too.

They could, however, be better. And this… tiny person to whom Bucky had been assigned, was going to be killed the first time he met War face-to-face. Unless Bucky did something about it, and that relatively soon.

“May one inquire--” Bucky asked, paused. Very personal question, really. “Can you fly?”

“What, you think these are just to make me even prettier?” Tony Stark said, smirking and spreading his wings, briefly, earning him a half-dozen glares from people at surrounding tables that he blithely ignored. “Yes, I can fly. Nearly gave my mother a heart attack the first time. And probably a dozen times after, too.”

“It does make you _very pretty_,” Bucky said. “A divine grace among men, not to be wasted on the field of battle. But since you can fly, we should look into training to best take advantage.”

Tony Stark paused, studying Bucky again. “...Huh. Uh. Yeah, that’s probably a good idea. They’re certainly not going to cover it for us in training, since I think I’m the only one with wings in this batch. You have any ideas?”

“You are, in fact, not the only one who can fly,” Bucky said. “Although I believe on my forms, it is described as _telemetric leaping_.”

“Telemetric-- How does that even work? Can I see?” He twisted his neck around, looking toward the opening of the big tent. “There’s got to be somewhere we can go.”

“Are you planning to eat that?” Bucky wondered, pointing to the tray of food, long grown cold. He didn’t wait for the answer, taking a handful of toast and jelly, stuffing it in his mouth. “Come on. They do not argue with me anymore.” He summoned his weapon with a snap of his fingers. He rather thought the upper level warriors were, in some manner, _afraid_ of him.

That was stupid. Bucky didn’t have anywhere else to go, why would he hurt the humans?

Tony Stark showed no objection to Bucky eating his food, just pushed to his feet and followed Bucky out of the tent.

***

Tony had known, when his lawyers had no longer been able to find loopholes to keep him out of his five-year stint in the Rift Guard, that he wasn’t going to like it. And the actual experience had borne out that thought -- crowded barracks, terrible food, endless repetition of tedious and painful exercises and practice.

But this... This wasn’t so bad. Stretching his wings, soaring over the seldom-used football field, practicing dips and spins and dodges with Bucky, that was kind of fun. Tony had always loved flying, done as much of it as he could get away with without freaking out the shareholders, but in the few weeks they’d been practicing, Tony’s abilities had grown by leaps and bounds. And as much as Tony hated to admit it, it had improved his performance in the ground-training, too, giving him more confidence and a keen sense of where a person or weapon was _going to be_ long before its movement was even half completed.

Bucky's own ability, a sort of limited teleportation combined with a gravity disbursement, along with that terrifying polearm that came to his hand as he willed it, was devastatingly lethal in all of their mock combat.

The first time Bucky had popped up behind him like a jack in the box, Tony had almost cut his own throat from sheer reflex.

"It is not common," Bucky said. "And the caloric intake… no, for my people, this is not an effective combat maneuver. Come, try again. _Feel_ where I am going and move."

Tony had scoffed, the first time Bucky had said that. How could you _feel_ where someone was going? Especially if they were going to be _teleporting_ and not moving through space normally? But Tony thought he was starting to get the hang of it, actually.

At least, with Bucky, anyway. He didn’t just _pop_ from one spot to another; there was some movement involved that (Tony assumed) dictated what direction and how far he would go, and after some practice, Tony had begun to pick up on those subtle shifts and cues.

He was still working out the finer points, still practicing to make his reactions _automatic_, but he got a little closer with every attempt. Or, at least, most of them. He nodded, and Bucky shifted-- 

Tony banked sharply, spinning in a tight circle on his pinions, and curved his wings for the greatest thrust, pushing through the air, his own weapon held ready.

Bucky appeared, slashed at him with the enormous scythe, and then his silvery eyes widened. “Morsel, out of the sky, now now now!”

“Wha--” Tony glanced over his shoulder, even as he automatically angled downward.

Bucky exploded out of the air just in front of him, landing on one knee and coming up in an aggressive crouch. “The portal, she opens,” he said. He made a sweeping gesture with the scythe, tracing the faintest ring of light against the sky. The sort of thing that Tony might have mistaken for a bit of mist, if he wasn’t paying close attention.

“_Here?_” Tony looked around frantically. “How?” He gripped his weapons, but they were blunted practice blades, mostly useless. “What do we do?”

“We will find them, and we will kill them,” Bucky said, like it was that easy. “Not many-- there is not enough miasma for a group of more than ten.”

Skipping right over what the hell _miasma_ was and what it had to do with a Rift portal, Tony squeaked, “_Ten?_ Against the _two of us?_ And I know you’re badass and all, but I’m only half-trained, as you insist on reminding me daily!”

“Not more than ten,” Bucky insisted. “Probably. Come, who will do it, if not us? There is no one in range to back us up. Also, half-trained you are, but half trained by _me_. You will not be at a disadvantage against less than three. Remember what you have been taught. Go for the spine. A hole is easily mended.” 

“Spine, right.” Tony’s wings fluttered. “With blunted blades. Sure. Why not? Lead on, then.”

Bucky grumbled and pulled a knife out from under his tunic, handing it back, hilt first. “You do not keep your own weapons on hand,” he complained. “This will be the death of you, I am certain of it.”

“We’re _behind the Wall_,” Tony grumbled back, shoving the practice blade into its heavy sheath and taking Bucky’s knife. He hefted it a few times, practiced a slash, getting a feel for the weight. “They’re not supposed to be able to manifest a portal here.”

“We are aiming a cannon at the planet from thousands of lightyears away, shooting for a dot the size of your fingernail,” Bucky said. “Sometimes, the targeting is off, a bit. It won’t be a stable portal.”

“Imagine my relief.” Tony snarked, falling in behind Bucky. “How do we find them?”

Bucky gathered up his cloud of mist, that reddish vapor that usually surrounded him. “Fly-- quite high, out of range, if you thought I was going to leap and throw a weapon at you. Go higher, even, than that, just to be safe. Look for the mists, the chi. We do not hide it, it is a sign of our superiority. You have no chi, you have no value. They will not see a fighter, they will see… a bird. A… a chicken, if you will. Something to eat, maybe, but not something to worry about.”

Tony narrowed his eyes and wondered what Bucky was going to be doing while he climbed up high enough to make frost rime his feathers, but there was no _time_ for an extended argument. “Don’t get killed,” he said, and took off, climbing nearly straight upwards, wings straining to move as quickly as he could. Through a wisp of cloud, and higher still, until it was nearly cold enough to chatter his teeth, and the ground was nothing but a green and brown wash. There were no updrafts, here, to hold him; staying up this high was a constant battle. But he let himself spiral, idly, a hunting raptor, and looked for spots of color that would show him Rifter mist.

Knowing what he was looking for, Bucky’s little cloud of red was almost like playing with the combat tracking computer, a speck that flitted and danced over the map, taking little jumps and leaving reddish footprints in his wake. 

And then--

Silver swirls of mist, mixed with a vile, putrid yellow. Green. 

Badly lit smoke bombs, too close together to be distinctive. 

But Tony could count four different colors, and maybe one that was two people walking too close to each other. 

Five, maybe six Rifters.

Tony had seen Bucky in the combat simulations, where he was a terror. And he’d seen Bucky’s warbraids and the beads in them. And obviously Bucky was confident of their success. But the biggest thing Tony had ever fought was that crazed pigeon, that one time, and he was, just a little, tiniest bit, utterly terrified.

What did he do?

On the ground, Bucky’s red swirl was drawing nearer and nearer to the muddy cluster of the Rifters.

He couldn’t leave Bucky to face them all alone. It didn’t matter how confident Bucky was, numbers _mattered_. Whatever he was going to do, he needed to do it _now_.

He could do this. He could. He was what stood between these Rifters and the rest of humanity, and it didn’t matter that most of humanity thought he was an abomination. Teeth gritted and knife held tightly, Tony dove.

It was barely more than a controlled free-fall, the wind battering his skin until he felt bruised from it, tears streaming from his eyes in a desperate effort to keep them from drying out. He dove, faster and faster, until he felt himself hit terminal velocity. He came in from the side. Bucky was already engaged, that scythe of his weaving faster than Tony had ever seen it before, the chain whipping around to foil limbs and pull them off balance. Tony pulled out of his dive, nearly screaming at the strain on his wings, and threw all that momentum into whipping forward, slashing with his knife as he passed.

He’d expected a jolt or at least a catch when he struck, but Bucky’s knife sliced through Tony’s target like it was warm butter, and then Tony was arcing back upward, out of the range of their weapons.

The Rifters were huge, each easily as tall as Bucky, and one of them quite a bit taller. Their chi swirled around them, conjuring weapons and adding speed, strength. One of them grew a set of bladed bones out of their back and arms, reminiscent of a very unfortunate hedgehog.

Bucky barely teleported around what would have been a lethal embrace, appearing just on the other side of the spiked Rifter. He staggered to one knee, panting for breath. _Caloric intake,_ Tony recalled, and they had been training for hours since breakfast.

Well, it wasn’t like the Rifters were going to let them pause for a snack break, were they? Tony rolled around and took another slicing run through the melee, aiming for the hedgehog, this time, though he wasn’t sure his knife was long enough to get to anything important through all those bones.

He didn’t have as much momentum this time, but the tradeoff there was that it was easier to aim; he swooped straight in and stabbed right between two particularly nasty barbed spurs and yanked the knife sideways as he continued on. One of the spurs dragged over his arm, ripping a gash open. It hurt like hell, but it didn’t seem to have sliced deep enough to affect his muscle. Not enough to make him drop the knife.

One of the Rifters, carrying a massive two-handed sword of some sort, yelled at Bucky, and Bucky yelled back in the same language. Tony had never heard the Rifter speech before, and, on a whole, he was glad for that gap in his education. The sounds were tearing at each other, nearly as much as the two men, sharp and dangerous and ugly.

Bucky got that chain going, wrapped and tangled the sword, yanked the Rifter in and opened him up, practically splitting the body right up the middle and spilling entrails. His feet made disgusting noises in the pile of body bits. A squelching, squeaking sound that Tony thought might actually haunt his dreams.

Another dodge, another swipe. Bucky teleported out of range, screamed in agony as he appeared. 

Tony managed to kill a second one, more by accident than intent, he thought. He was soaked with their pungent, almost sweet-smelling blood. Sticky and more brown than red.

The last one grabbed Tony out of the air, slammed him bodily into the ground. All the breath exploded out of Tony’s lungs, and for a terrified second, he couldn’t draw a new breath back _in_, couldn’t do anything but gape and try to gasp, flailing to roll out of the way of the blow he knew must be coming.

Bucky yelled, a foreign growl and snarl, like biting off the words and spitting them out, which ended with something that sounded very much like, “Tonistark.”

The Rifter that held him let go with sudden shock. “Tonistark?”

Bucky held out his hand. “Come here, Tony, come now.”

Tony didn’t have to be told twice. He scrambled up onto his feet, ungraceful, still only able to draw desperate, thin breaths, and ran to Bucky. When, he wondered hysterically, had the Rifter come to feel like _safety?_

“I’ve got you,” Bucky said, pulling him in, tucking Tony against a thick chest. “Don’t let go.” There was a deep, thrumming sound and all the air squeezed out of Tony’s lungs again, like he was being flattened, and then--

They came out of the air right behind the last Rifter and Bucky’s scythe practically fell out of his hand, decapitating the man in a single stroke.

Bucky, himself, went face first after him, legs going boneless and weak.

“Fuck!” Tony lurched forward, catching Bucky before he could collapse to the ground. “Shit, Bucky, what-- Are you hurt? Did they--” He looked Bucky over, but if Bucky was bleeding, there was no way Tony could tell, through the other Rifters’ blood. “Bucky?”

Bucky was breathing, shallow and quickly, and his eyelids fluttered open a few times, but didn’t seem to focus on anything before he was closing them again. “Tony Stark?”

“It’s me, I’m here,” Tony promised. “Come on, Bucky, stay with me. Stay awake. Just think how embarrassing it would be if I had to carry you back to camp.”

“Embarrassing for you,” Bucky muttered. “You are tiny. You can’t carry me.” He shuddered all over, and then tried vainly to focus. “You guide. I can walk, but I cannot see at the same time.”

“Yeah, okay, just lean on me, here.” Tony slipped his arm around Bucky’s waist, and turned them back toward the camp.

***

The Wall’s camp was a cyclone of activity by the time Tony Stark managed to get Bucky back to the boundary. Half the squad was turned out, armed and armored, and looking more than a little green around the throat. Like they’d been given bad food,

“What happens?” Bucky wondered, staring around at the confusion. 

The rest of the squad were struggling to get into armor unfamiliar to them, or checking out weapons that Bucky knew they were very ill-qualified to use.

“At a guess,” Tony said, “the portal was detected and they’re scrambling to defend.” He kept pulling Bucky along, heading straight for the Commander’s tent.

“Where’ve you two been?” one of the Lieutenants snapped. “Fall in, fall in, this is not a drill.”

“There is no need,” Bucky said, and he nearly fell as Tony skidded to a halt. “We have contained the threat.” 

“Eliminated, really,” Tony added, wings rustling as he showed the hand that wasn’t half holding Bucky up. It was covered to the wrist in drying blood, Rifter and human colors mingled muddily. 

The officer stared, blinked. Bucky all but watched him decide whether or not to ignore their report in favor of hurrying up to wait. There would be no battle today, no glory for these… _children_. Unless they’d dropped another one off to scout and Tony had missed it in his aerial recon, there wasn’t enough miasma in the air for an extended opening.

“The portal was only open for half a rel,” Bucky said. “There is no immediate threat.” The amount of power it took, to open the portal across impossible distances, would have completely not been worth the effort at all, save that they’d moved from their home planet to a staging world that had a triluminary solar system, and had power to spare and then some. Most, in fact, of the planets they’d discovered, were not nearly so inimical to Rifter life and limb. 

“Now, if you’ll excuse us, Lieutenant,” Tony said, “my partner overextended himself in the fight. He needs food and rest.” He didn’t wait for the lieutenant to excuse them, just lurched back into motion, tugging Bucky along.

The overly stuffy officer reached out and grabbed Tony’s shoulder, fingers biting in. “Now see here, Cadet--”

Bucky snarled, wrenching the man’s grip free, putting Tony behind him, to protect the smaller man, all fury and killing rage. “You will not touch this man,” Bucky growled. “He has fought well and conducted himself admirably. Lay a hand on him again in peril of your life.” Bucky was panting for breath, it was an empty threat. He could not defend against the entire camp if they chose to come at him, but he would cost it dear to them.

“Whoa, hey, chill out,” Tony said, resting his hand on Bucky’s shoulder, gently. “I’m sure the lieutenant didn’t mean any harm.” Tony’s fingers twitched a little. “If you’ll excuse us, sir, I’m sure you’re needed to direct the sweep of the area and recover the bodies, and we need to--”

“Eat something, before I bite off the head of this little man,” Bucky threatened.

A little push from Tony, and they were moving again. The unworthy officer did not attempt to stop them again. “You don’t want to eat him,” Tony advised. “He probably tastes terrible.”

“I don’t want to eat him,” Bucky agreed. That was _probably_ true. Quite possibly, even if he did taste good, Bucky would not _want _to eat him. The consequences of such an action would be… well, trying, to say the least. “Pancakes are better.”

Tony laughed, maybe a little unevenly. “Breakfast is over by now, I’m sure, but we’ll see what we can scrounge up in the mess.”

Scrounging was exactly what they ended up having to do; only one of the cooks were currently on duty, and after Bucky ate three raw eggs (including the shells) that one cleared out as well, shaking his head and throwing up his hands. “What? There are many nutrients in eggshells,” Bucky wondered. The punishment detail was up to their wrists in _spuds, _but Bucky had already discovered that uncooked potatoes were difficult to digest. 

Tony put some of the yellow stuff -- cheese? Butter? Didn’t matter. Some animal lactate product -- onto bread and handed it to Bucky. “Yeah, we can’t digest the shells,” he said. “Here, eat this. Lots of calories and carbs.”

“You have weak stomachs,” Bucky informed him.

“Well, apparently we’ve never needed them to be stronger,” Tony pointed out. He went into the storeroom, and came back with a cylinder nearly the size of his head. “Peanut butter,” he told Bucky. “Protein and fat. Most people put it on bread or something, but you can just eat it with a spoon if you can’t wait that long.”

Bucky took the spoon and the jar. There was more physical food product in this single jar than most Rifters would see in a lifetime. The humans didn’t care. It’s a _jar of peanut butter_, not a miracle. Bucky took a spoonful of the paste. It smelled like nut and salt and oil. The texture was smooth, satiny, and it stuck to his tongue, gluing his mouth closed.

It was _wonderful_.

Bucky closed his eyes and let his body absorb nutrients, strength. His chi mist swirled up around him, a paler pink than normal. It was good, he thought, that humans didn’t have a mist; that Tony could not possibly understand what he was seeing, and that he didn’t know how stupidly grateful Bucky was for a spoonful of _nut butter_.

“It’s good,” he said, finally, licking the inside of his mouth clean to get at the last little bit of it. 

“Yeah, I figured you’d like that.” Tony looked... pleased? His mouth was curved upward.

The coffee left in the decanter was old, stale. Not quite cold, but certainly no longer warm. Bucky drank it anyway; the stimulants quite good, even if it was not peak flavor. He’d heard other humans say it, that the coffee _back home_ was so much better than this swill. 

“What is your… favorite thing, to eat,” Bucky wondered. Humans had _favorites_. There were enough varieties of the malus seed pods that humans might have a favorite sort of _apple_.

“Blueberries,” Tony said promptly. “And cheeseburgers. Not like the ones they serve here. We ever get a weekend pass, I’ll take you for a _good_ burger.”

“I have -- nothing to exchange for it. No samples from another world. The portal, you know, it does not even _go home_, not anymore. I would never be able to offer anything from my planet for your inspection, except myself, and the weapon I bought.” His chi swirled again, gaining strength, and he willed his wounds to close. “Well, perhaps this--”

And he extended his chi, wrapped Tony up in it, as he might do for a child of his own flesh, or a beloved battle partner. He wasn’t sure if Tony could feel it, sense it, or only see. There was no heat or sense of Tony’s chi. If he had such a thing at all, it could not, or would not, respond to Bucky’s. But neither could an infant’s, so Bucky treated him as if Tony were an infant. Soothing hunger, easing pain, healing, recycling the air in his blood. 

Rifters were a highly evolved, _efficient _life form. 

“Wha-- _Oh_.” Tony’s eyes widened and he looked down at his arm, where a gash was closing. “Well that’s... Wow. That’s worth way more than a cheeseburger. But you don’t... You don’t have to give me anything back, you know. Is this a culture thing? I just thought you might, you know, like it.”

“I am certain that I will,” Bucky said. “Enjoy whatever leisure activities and foods and company that we are given. Assuming--” he said, eyeing the cadre of officers that were rushing at the chow tent, “--we are given anything at all, aside from a quick execution.”

“They’re not going to execute us,” Tony said with absolute confidence. He did step forward, edging slightly in front of Bucky, his wings fluffing out to make him look bigger.

In the end, no one was executed. The remains were found and analyzed. Quite a lot of fussing went on as accusations were hurled about who, exactly, was responsible for this. 

“_They are_,” Bucky said, in an undertone, to Tony at the hastily drawn up enquiry. “Does your command think I issued an invitation across centuries of travel, for them to come by and ‘do lunch’?”

“Who knows what these assclowns think?” Tony wondered. He had argued fervently -- almost viciously -- on Bucky’s behalf. He eyed the bickering officers. “They can’t execute us, but I’m willing to bet they’ll ‘promote’ us to the Wall in short order to get us out of the way.”

“There is still food, at the Wall, yes?” Bucky pushed back in his chair, sitting insolently with his hands laced behind his neck. “Then this is no hardship.”

***

Being at the Wall was _nothing_ like being at the training camp. Tony had expected that to be true, of course; he wasn’t naive. He just hadn’t quite comprehended the sheer _magnitude_ of the difference.

The training camp was staffed with career military officers and NCOs, unmutated humans whose job was to give the mutants basic training -- experience with different weapons, hand-signals to use when voices weren’t practical, how to work together. By the time they’d finished the course, the cohort acted together like a well-oiled machine, setting aside personal differences -- neither Tony nor Bucky were ever going to be popular -- in the face of a common goal.

The Wall, on the other hand... It wasn’t _entirely_ chaos, but the mutants outnumbered the humans there by more than a hundred to one, and the training cohorts had been decimated and re-formed so many times that no unit stayed the same for more than a month at a time. There weren’t many partners who’d been together for more than six months.

Their first battle with incoming Rifters had been the day after their arrival, and despite having two seasoned squads buffering them, half of their unit had been lost. If it weren’t for Bucky, Tony would have been among them, several times over.

Now, several months along, Tony had realized that battle had been little more than a skirmish.

Finally relieved of duty, Tony made his way back to their quarters and fell face-first onto his bunk. “I’m going to sleep for a week,” he threatened. He twitched his wings; it was time for his molt, and they _itched_. He flapped a little, sending a small flurry of lighter underfeathers around the room like red and black snow.

“I can smuggle you dinner rolls,” Bucky told him. There were strict rules about food and the Wall. Most people ignored them heartily, but they did exist. “Water is harder. You will have to drink from the tap.” He hung up any number of guns and knives on the pegs set into the rude plaster of their dormer. The room technically held six soldiers, but Bucky and Tony were the only ones in it.

Bucky was, apparently, terrifying enough that none of the new soldiers would claim the unused cots. Of which there were only three left, because Bucky had commandeered one to try to contain some of his extensive length. 

Tony groaned. He hadn’t been hungry or thirsty until Bucky had said something about it. He sighed and pushed himself up onto his elbows. “Fine,” he complained. “Meals, and that’s it.” He scowled at his wing and reached into it to pull out a loose feather that was itching. “Shove the trash bin over here, would you?”

“What for?” Bucky wondered. He already had a little handful of Tony’s underfeathers, and was meticulously picking them up. “Did you go to medical?”

That was another one of those strict rules that everyone ignored. The med staff was badly overworked. If you weren’t bleeding, you left them alone. If you were bleeding, sometimes you asked your bunkmate to wrap your wounds. The med techs were the true heroes out here at the Wall. 

Even the _Rifters _knew that. Sometimes they made raids against the techs and the supply tents.

“No, I’m not that bad off.” Tony felt gingerly around the bruises and cuts, but none of them suggested broken bones or had that prickly-hot feeling that meant he’d encountered a poisoned weapon. “You don’t have to pick those up for me; I’ll take care of it. Just dump what you’ve got in the trash, and I’ll sweep up when I can stand again.”

Bucky scowled. “I will _not_,” he said, smoothing out a crumpled filofeather. He coaxed the bent quill straight again, and laid it down on the top blanket of his bunk, a flash of red against the army-green fabric. 

Tony blinked at him. “You won’t... what? What are you doing?”

“Sorting,” Bucky said, which did appear to be what he was doing; laying each feather down, in small rows, first by color and then by relative length. He tenderly straightened out plumes and patted the barbules until they were smooth. When he’d gotten several of them in a neat, tight bundle, he tied the stems together with colored yarn, making a tiny -- bouquet?

Tony cocked his head. “No, really,” he said. “What are you _doing?_”

“I am _salvaging_,” Bucky said. “These are so beautiful, so lovely. They smell very nice. I will not throw them out. They are not _trash_.”

Bucky tucked the little bundle into the top drawer of his military issued chest.

Tony could only gape. “If you’re going to save every feather I molt over the next four years, you’re going to need a bigger trunk,” he pointed out. “What are you even going to do with them?”

Bucky looked into his drawer. “I do not know, yet,” he said. “But I cannot let you throw them out, they are precious. Beautiful.” He took the two longer feathers from Tony’s shocked fingers, holding them up. “These are _perfect_. Not even a single notch out of place.” One was the brilliant red that Command despaired of, saying Tony was flying around as a living target, and the other was soft black, both about ten inches long. 

Bucky patted them, and then went to their small mirror, barely the size to capture Bucky’s entire face, and situated on the wall so Tony had to stand on his toes to use it, and Bucky had to crouch.

He placed one of the feathers alongside his war braid, tucking it into the dark woven hair. “Do you approve?”

Tony couldn’t look away. His feather shone beautifully against Bucky’s dark hair. Everyone on the Wall knew Bucky and Tony were partners, but this felt... big. Heavy. As if he were laying claim to Bucky with that bright flash of color. He swallowed and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s... I approve.”

Bucky smiled, wide and broad and utterly beautiful. “Excellent,” he said. He placed the two feathers gently on the chest, plucked at his silver warbeads until they came out, and placed them next to the feathers.

Bucky had a little ceremony for his warbraids; they were washed when he showered, and despite wearing his hair shaved along the sides according to military regulations, he’d point blank refused to shave the braids, wearing them constantly. But he only unbraided them every few months, usually to add another bead painstakingly made from the weapons of his fallen enemies, and one time, he’d taken a bead directly from a Rifter’s beard, a star-shaped red crystal. 

This time, he just unbraided them, letting his hair fall around his face, lovely and touchable. Combed it all smooth, and then rebraided, putting his beads back in place, and -- braided Tony’s feathers into the mix, so a few inches hung down next to Bucky’s ears.

Bucky shook his head a few times, satisfied that they were well anchored. “You like? I am very fierce, a dangerous warrior.” He made his war face at the mirror, baring his teeth.

“Yeah, ‘cause I’m sure it’s a couple of feathers that makes all the difference, there,” Tony teased, because he didn’t know what else to do with this bright warmth in his chest. “Before this, you were just kind of an annoying warrior.”

“The greatest warriors of my people can cause an entire battle command to turn and run, with a single scowl and a fierce countenance. You will see. Someday, I will be a great warrior, and people will write songs of me, and a special lament for the beautiful reverence in which I held my partner, the Morsel, who died of hunger from being too lazy to go to the Mess Hall.”

Tony burst out laughing. “All right, all right,” he said. He held up a hand and let Bucky pull him back up onto his still-aching feet. “Let’s go get you fed, you bottomless pit.”

***

“You will tear another month off your chain today,” Bucky observed. Three and a half years of manning the Wall, and every month, without fail, Jarvis sent a letter informing Tony of his utmost esteem. Esteem meant homemade cookies and tarts from Ana, a bag of roasted coffee beans, and other small tidbits from home. And Tony would mark off another month in this hellish service. 

Only a little over a year to go, now… Fifteen months. Sixty one weeks. Four hundred, twenty seven days. 

“It’s almost close enough to taste,” Tony said, echoing Bucky’s own thoughts. He made the mark, then peered into the depths of the box. “Ooh, blueberry tarts.” He snatched one up and started to nibble at the edges of it delicately, like a mouse.

“It is a fundamental waste of time,” Bucky declared. “The portal has not opened in almost two of your years. We have decided it is not worth the effort to torch the field. Some centuries from now, they will try again. But not in your lifetime.”

Tony sighed and tipped his chair back on two legs, leaning his shoulders against the wall of their flimsy barracks room. “It’s political,” he said, not for the first time. “Forcing us to service reminds us that we’re not fully human and not worthy of human rights. I had to prove _irreparable harm_ to the company if they didn’t let me inherit, after my parents died. God only knows who it would have fallen to. One of the Italian cousins, I guess.”

“Not fully human,” Bucky snorted. “You have only been improved, by the smallest of margins. Well, most of you. You, my friend-- a masterpiece.”

Tony rolled his eyes, but his feathers fluffed and settled in the way Bucky had learned meant he was pleased. “Yes, well, humans are notoriously xenophobic. We don’t like _otherness_. And we muties are definitely _other_.”

“At home, your company would be fought over,” Bucky said. He had said this many times. It was not like it mattered, but sometimes it was fun to dream about it. The fetes and balls that would be held, to celebrate the wonder that was _Tony Stark_. “The wealthy and powerful would compete, to be allowed to look at you. The softest blankets for your bed, the most gentle and attentive servants. You would, of course, never have to see anyone that you did not wish to grace with your company.” He wondered, if Tony were to be one of the revered, if he would have any inclination to spend time with _Bucky_. Here, at least, Bucky was one of the few who even came close to understanding the miracle that was Tony, of course Tony would gravitate toward him. But when Bucky’s hands were empty--

Tony laughed, as he always did. “All that, for a pair of wings? My blankets are plenty soft, already.” That may be true; Jarvis had sent them both blankets in one of the earliest boxes, so soft to the touch it seemed they had been woven of clouds.

“All that, for a pair of wings,” Bucky said. “I think, sometimes, you do not understand how marvelously _messy _you are. Wings are… not efficient. There are faster ways to travel… what you are, and what we sorely lack. Is beauty. You are… beautiful and rare and precious, and therefore have much value.”

Tony looked amused and let his chair thump back to the floor, stretching out his wings to their full span -- the room was large enough, barely, as long as he was cautious -- and then folded them up again. “What about you? How come you’re not still back there, being squabbled over by the rich and powerful?”

“You have this lush planet, where you have but to drop a seed in the dirt and food _grows_. Like your mythical Garden of Eden. I’m a-- you would say _soldier_, perhaps, but more like… highly skilled farmer,” Bucky said. “Perhaps, _exterminator_. I am nothing special. I was sent to make the planet ready for… use. To find that the bees are very fierce, highly protective, and unusually intelligent.”

“Well, we were here first,” Tony said. “If they’ve given up, though, that’s good, right? Too many stings from us insects.” He made a face.

“What would you do,” Bucky wondered. “I am not home, I have no access to policies, or planning. If you came across wasps that chased you from the field. Would you give up? Go somewhere else, leave the wasps alone? Or would you burn the field? If they come again in your lifetime, it will be to leave nothing behind. We don’t have to live here, after all. There are dozens of planets we have discovered that can sustain our kind. Nothing like here, however. It is glorious, here.”

“You think Earth is a tempting enough prize that this respite is just them working on a bigger, nastier bug spray,” Tony said, not really making it a question. “Well. We’ll just have to work on some kind of protection for that. A suit of armor around the world.”

“Perhaps,” Bucky said. “It does not really matter. I will never leave this place. Not in sixty one weeks, not in a thousand weeks.”

“Do you miss it? Your home?”

Bucky wondered what that meant, really. _Home_. “I have not been to the stone forests since I was a child. I would not know my parent, and they would probably not know me. I had nothing that was my own, except my weapon. I have it still, so that is good. I come from a land where -- _individuals_ are valued, but there is nothing unique about me. Like the hydra, chop off one head, and two more will grow back in its place. We are… innumerable and unending. But also, not very interesting. You… you are interesting. This place is interesting. This place… this place is my home.”

Tony preened a little again. “Yeah? So it doesn’t really matter if you’re stuck on Earth, then, right?”

“No, it does not matter,” Bucky said. “But I will miss _you_, when you have gone from this place. Morsel.”

Tony cocked his head, frowning a little. “I mean, you don’t _have_ to. You can visit me. That’s a thing friends do. Visit each other.”

Bucky did not roll his eyes; he knew the human custom to ignore a thing unless it concerned that one, but he would have thought Tony knew. “Do you believe that,” he speculated. “That the uppers will ever, ever allow me to… dwell somewhere outside the Wall. That I could be trusted, to walk among you. As… even a lesser citizen, lesser even than the mutations that your kind spurn so much.”

Tony’s mouth opened, and then closed, and he looked suddenly distressed. “Your contract says five years, same as mine,” he argued weakly.

“Aye,” Bucky agreed. “I wonder, sometimes, if they will trump up some sort of… charges. Before the portal’s inactivity, I thought they would simply allow me to be killed. Honorable death, in action, defending the peoples I have come to love. It would be a powerful play. Very beautiful.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Tony said, fierce. “Either of those things. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Tell me of my future, then,” Bucky said. He laid back; the Wall was very slack duty these days, only a few dozen of the mutant soldiers, with more who’d been installed in other bases that could be called in at short notice. A few officers, and one _gentleman_. A few camp followers who met the baser needs, sometimes.

“I don’t know,” Tony admitted. “I mean, what do you _want_ to do? Keep being a soldier? Learn a new trade? Live a life of indolence? You’ve never really said.” He made a face, realizing for the first time, perhaps, why that was.

“I would like to have a beehive,” Bucky said, decidedly. “My own tiny little warriors, and plant flowers for them. And collect honey. Honey is quite delicious. Or chickens. I could keep chickens. They lay the eggs, I feed them. A mutually beneficial arrangement.” He didn’t want to kill anything, although he didn’t personally object to eating the flesh of animals; animals were made of food, amazing as that seemed, and quite tasty, too. But he didn’t want to personally raise an animal for the purpose of killing. Bees, or chickens. That would be good. Somewhere quiet.

“I like that,” Tony said. “That sounds nice. Quiet. Nothing for the norms to get weirded out about. We can probably make that happen.” He nodded decisively, as if it were already settled. “And occasionally, your old friend will come visit. Or you can come see me.”

“And you… you will run your company,” Bucky said, remembering what he could about Tony’s plans. “And tinker in your workshop. And sleep as late as you please.” And what he knew of other plans, from other men. Eventually, the Rifter had stopped being a novelty among them, and he’d heard them talk, sometimes even talked with them. Not that he had… friends, precisely, but he was no longer surrounded by enemies. “You will find a _nice girl_, and get married? That is something you will do?”

Tony puffed out a breath. “Or a boy, maybe. But probably not too _nice_, because it’s me, and nice people don’t often want to put up with me for very long.”

“This is the manner in which humans are highly inefficient. It takes two of you to make a single infant,” Bucky said, shaking his head. The marriage, as he understood it, was a contract for two humans, mostly to participate in procreation. With some ceremonial status around it.

“You can make a baby by yourself?” Tony looked extremely startled.

“With time, yes, and an adequate shelter, and food,” Bucky said. “It is not my specific purpose, and I can only make one child at a time, but should I wish it, on this world? I could make probably a dozen or more. If I wanted to. There are others, at home, who are designed for perpetuation, and will bear more than three or four infants per day. Usually, if we wish an heir, it is easier to get one from a breeder, you understand.”

“Per _day?_” Tony’s voice spiraled into a squeak, and his eyes were huge and round.

“Thus, you begin to see why we do not value any given Rifter, bred for a single purpose,” Bucky said.

“I begin to see how you keep outgrowing all your worlds and needing to find new places to farm,” Tony returned. His eyes narrowed. “How do you manage genetic diversity, then?”

“If I want a dozen such as myself, I do nothing,” Bucky said. “If I want-- something else. I have a partner who can alter my chi, can mold it, shape it. Sometimes these fail, and the child is born the same as the parent. Sometimes, there is more. I don’t know. I feel certain it would not be allowed. Your people do not want more of mine, here. You wish less. None, ideally.”

Tony tipped his head in reluctant agreement. “Maybe,” he admitted. “Though it would be a heck of a social experiment, to raise a Rifter to value human culture.” His gaze unfocused as it often did when he was trying to follow a thought to its logical conclusion. “Well, one thing at a time, I guess. Getting you out of here, set up with a beehive and some chickens.” He grinned. “Maybe you’ll meet a nice girl of your own one day. Or do Rifters not have sex? No reason for it, I guess.”

“The petting and pleasing that you share with the camp followers?” Bucky jerked his chin in the direction of the few temporary housing units that those types lived in. They were clean, and kind, and had once brought Bucky within, just to see if he was any different. “We can… give a partner or a friend pleasure. Accept it. It’s not always an efficient use of calories.”

“Yeah, we don’t have to account for every single calorie, here,” Tony said. “So you could have a girlfriend, if you wanted, probably. Or a boyfriend.”

Bucky laughed. “Or a morsel.” He reached over and ruffled Tony’s hair; a thing that would be greatly daring -- forbidden, perhaps -- on his homeworld, but humans encouraged tactile gestures. From friends.

Tony flushed red, a crawl of heat up his neck and down his cheeks, but he didn’t pull away from the touch. He reached for the box from Jarvis, though, and made a great show of looking through it. “Still no salt,” he said, affecting disappointment.

“Well, perhaps you are meant to be an after-meal comfit,” Bucky said. “No salt necessary.”

Tony chuckled, the excess blood slowly draining back out of his face. “But oh so delicious,” he teased.

Bucky spent the next several weeks, and two more of Jarvis’s monthly deliveries, trying to decide if Tony had meant… exactly what it seemed to Bucky that he’d suggested.

That Bucky could, in fact, have a morsel.

***

The out-processing for Bucky was, in fact, quite a bit longer than outprocessing for Tony. Tony began to fear that, in his absence, and without direct oversight from Stark Industries, which was doing everything it could to help expedite the process, that something, in fact, was going to _happen_.

But finally, he got the call he’d been waiting for.

“I have him, sir, and we are on route.”

“Great, Jarvis! You’re the best. I’ll be here to meet you. Is he okay?”

“He is very… tall, sir,” Jarvis said. “But well enough. There was only the most minor amount of inconvenience. I believe that SI has the military well and truly shaken.”

“As well we should,” Tony agreed. “We are, after all, the only military contractor with a Rifter on staff.” Which, of course, was how he’d been able to finagle transferring Bucky’s keeping into his own hands.

It was both longer and shorter to wait, as patiently as Tony was able, in the front room of what had been, after weeks of tedious legal appointments, a moderate-sized building on Stark lands, in midstate.

Well, mid-sized before Tony -- and his architectural team -- got a hold of it. Tony wasn’t one for moderation in much of anything.

Now the building was a virtual fortress, rich and tasteful on the outside, defensible on the inside, the entire thing beautiful, but vastly overdone for what was a glorified farmhouse.

A few acres of fruit trees flourished on one side of the house, bees and their hives on the other. The kitchen’s herb garden would rival some of the world’s best chef’s spice cabinets, and there were chickens (and geese) as well as a handful of baby goats that Tony had been told were, in fact, utterly necessary.

Well, he’d had to do _something_ with all his nervous anticipation while he waited for Bucky’s official release.

Despite them having started the same day, the Rift Guard had indeed tried to draw out Bucky’s discharge, sticking him with an extra month here, another six weeks there, for minor infractions, even before Tony had gone home. After the third time it had happened, Tony had spun up SI’s lawyers. And just in time, too. In the end, Bucky’d had to serve nearly an extra six months.

Well, it had given Tony time to get the house in order. And now Bucky was coming _home_, and Tony was going to get to see him again.

He could hardly believe how much he’d missed the Rifter.

The car pulled up, and Jarvis allowed Bucky out, into the sunshine. He was, in fact, quite tall, towering over the ancient butler, and he waved off an offer of assistance with his bags, heaving one canvas rucksack over his shoulder and scooping the other up with his metal hand. The weapon was already hanging across his back, the scythe edge covered with a sheath of leather that did not make it look any less dangerous.

“Morsel,” Bucky cried out as soon as he spotted Tony. “Come, you must tell me, what is _free _about this air, that was unfree, about the air in the northlands?”

God, Tony had forgotten a thousand tiny details in those six months. He spent a long minute just reveling in the sight of his partner. Ex-partner? He shook it off. Friend, at the very least. “This air,” he said, striding across the grass, “comes with no obligations or orders.” Would it be awkward to go for a hug? Tony kind of wanted to hug Bucky. Of course, he kind of wanted to _climb Bucky like a damn tree_, too, so his instincts probably shouldn’t be trusted.

“It does smell _different_,” Bucky said. “Like grass and growing things, and not socks and unshowered recruits. You are still very small, Morsel. I would have thought you might have spent your first few months of this… freedom, and grown up somewhat. But it is just as well. I don’t know if I would like you so well if I could not heft you over my shoulder like another bag.” Which he proceeded to do, lifting Tony into a quick embrace, more of a squeeze than a hug, and then dropped him over a shoulder. “Where are we taking my things, that come with no orders or obligations?” 

Tony sputtered, half-laughing and half-protesting, and finally managed to look around to see Jarvis watching them, one eyebrow raised and the very smallest of smiles tugging at his lips. Tony pointed at him. “No laughing!”

He wriggled his wings free of Bucky’s hold and flapped hard, lifting both of them off the ground a couple of feet before capitulating. “In the house is probably a good start. For which you’ll probably need to put me down, because the door is not low enough for you _and_ my wings.”

Tony was placed back on the floor and patted a few times. “It is good, you have been practicing, even since you left the Wall. I am relieved. I am told I have… some small amounts of _severance pay_, and papers to claim status, which are green cards, except they are not, in fact, green. And some additional papers to upgrade to _citizenship_, if I wish it. And that these are all things which you have personally acquired for me, and that you would probably wish to see them.”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Tony said, opening the door to usher Bucky inside. “I _personally_ told my lawyers to get all that stuff for you, and they did the hard work, which is what I pay them to do. But sure, we can take a look at your IDs and permits and your DD-214. We should probably get you a wallet or something. And get notarized copies made for safekeeping.” He turned around in the airy front room of the house and spread his arms. “Welcome home.”

Bucky stared around the room, sharp eyes picking up the little luxuries, the polished sea stones that made up the floor, the rug and empty shelves, a full length mirror. Nothing too unusual, but Bucky was smiling, his entire face lit with wonder. “This… this whole room, is for me?”

“Uh. I mean, yes, but really, the whole house?” Tony looked around. “There isn’t even a bed in here. I wouldn’t give you a place with no bed.”

“Because of course, I cannot be sleeping on the floor,” Bucky said. “I will get soft, and it will be your fault, Morsel. No more patrols, no more training. No more weapons use, unless I wish it. Or, so they tell me.” He was gazing at Tony calmly, those blue eyes telling no more of his secrets than usual. “This is the future, that we planned together?”

“This is the future,” Tony agreed, a helpless smile pulling at his cheeks at that _together_. “No more anything unless you want it.”

Bucky followed Tony around the house, poking into all the rooms, and looking inside all the closets. There were sets of clothing that Tony had installed, made to measure from the uniforms Bucky’d worn on the Wall. They’d been soldiers together, and privacy had not really been… much in demand in a barracks, so Tony wasn’t quite sure why it was different that as soon as Bucky came across things like jeans, and tee shirts, and socks and sneakers, that he insisted on changing clothes right away, not even stepping into the dressing room before throwing off the Wall uniform.

Despite claiming ordinary whenever Tony had spoken to him about the other Rifters, Bucky was, in fact, beautiful, a thick wall of muscled chest and shapely arms, a trim waist. Heavy, powerful thighs, and smooth, not quite tan skin.

Tony had seen Bucky naked any number of times as they hurried through showering and dressing in their routines. It was different, though, watching Bucky blithely strip off in the middle of the room, pausing to stretch, revealing those sculpted muscles. The sounds of BDUs and tac gear were ingrained in Tony’s memories now, stiff canvas and the creak of leather and metallic _ting_ of metal, and nothing at all like the soft whisper of worn and snug denim sliding over skin, or the barely-there rustle of a soft shirt being pulled over Bucky’s head.

Tony swallowed and made himself look away.

Bucky twisted and stretched, testing the give of fabrics, the range of motion. “This, this is very nice,” he said. “Not to wear armor.” He hung his weapon up on the stand Tony had specifically installed for it. Not in the bedroom, because really, they should not get invaded this far off the Wall without some sort of warning, but in a training and meditation room nearby.

“And where do you live?” Bucky finally asked, after they’d done the tour of the house, but not yet gone outside to look at Bucky’s little farm. (Tony had, on the side, hired a master gardener and some animal husbandry people, in case farming should not turn out to be something Bucky was any good at, so that the animals would not suffer from mismanagement.)

“Uh, well, I have places kind of all over,” Tony said, stumbling a little. He hadn’t expected that question, for some reason. “Right now I’m mostly based out of New York -- er, City, that is,” he added, because Bucky’s finer grasp of geography more than fifty miles from the Wall was sorely lacking. “Though there’s a guest room here if you want me to stick around for a little while and help you get settled in.”

“For some small time, if it’s not-- an inconvenience,” Bucky said, frowning a little. “I will need to be coached-- for human society. If there are neighbors, and how I would go about marketing the food I wish to grow and produce. And, of course, I have missed you. It was not the same, on the Wall, without your support.”

Tony felt like melting. “I missed you too,” he said. “Can’t tell you how many times, the first month or so, something would happen and I’d look for your reaction, or think I was just about to hear one of your snarky comments.” He smiled, maybe a little watery. “Would you believe it was actually hard to go to sleep in a good bed, after five years of those terrible cots?”

“I imagine I will soon discover,” Bucky said. “But, for a change, it appears my entire self will fit on the bed, with room for one more besides.” He was measuring out the length of the bed, one of the largest Tony could buy that would fit in the room; with Bucky’s height coming in just under seven feet or so, the military cots had been. Less than adequate, but he’d slept on it every night without complaint for five years.

Tony suppressed the inner shiver he felt at that _room for one more_. Bucky hadn’t meant it like that; it was just an observation on the size of the bed. “Heck, you could probably fit two more,” he joked, “if you were all good friends.”

“Well, that would be an embarrassment of riches,” Bucky said. “Two _more _good friends. And you, of course, Morsel.” He patted the pillow, straightened out a corner of the comforter. “I was very interested in the _kitchen and pantry_ you have put together for me. You will share the bounty of our harvests together, and we will be very well fed indeed.” He took Tony’s hand -- Tony was mostly used to that, Bucky had hauled him around by his wrist most of the time at the Wall, urging Tony with his shorter legs on to greater speeds -- but it was… different, as Bucky laced their fingers together to draw him down toward the kitchen.

Tony knocked the daydream-y jitters out of his wings, and set about showing Bucky the kitchen. Smaller than the Guard kitchen, of course, since it wasn’t meant to feed several hundred at a time, but much better equipped. And Tony had stocked the refrigerator and pantry with all the things he knew Bucky liked, even if the Rifter still insisted that it was impossible to have _favorites_.

Bucky landed on his kitchen like a starving horde, taking bites out of an apple while he sampled three different kinds of potato chips, investigated yogurt, cheese, _and _ice cream, discovered a food that he might actually have disliked (Vegemite paste was sort of a joke, and an acquired taste, and Bucky squinted at it dubiously) before settling down to eat out of the fruit basket. He offered Tony slivers of peach, alternating with almonds, insisting on feeding him, as if Tony hadn’t been subsisting on green smoothies and coffee, and he was Just Fine, Thank you, as far as eating went.

Somehow, it eased something in Tony to see Bucky eating so eagerly. Maybe it was the ghost of his Italian grandmother. “There’s all the cooking gear you could want, too,” Tony said. “And some cookbooks. A couple on the beginner’s level, since you’ve mentioned the Rift’s idea of a fulfilling meal a couple of times, and then a variety of others. Feel free to experiment, let me know if you need anything that’s not already here.”

“You,” Bucky said, with a shrug. He dipped the peach slice into some yogurt, and ate that. 

Tony waited for the rest of the sentence. Nothing else seemed to be forthcoming. “Me, what?”

“The thing,” Bucky said. “That is not already here. Or not, at least, remaining. Understand, this is an observation, not a complaint. I know there are many demands upon your time.”

“You... want me to stay?”

“This surprises you?” Bucky took a bite of strawberry, offered Tony the remaining piece of fruit. “You are my friend, my partner. Of course I wish you to remain.”

“Right,” Tony said. “Yeah, sure, it just kind of caught me off guard, I guess. I... I mean, you weren’t wrong, many demands on my time, but I can try to be here as much as I can. There’s a lot of work I can do remotely, from wherever, as long as I’ve got a ‘net connection, so...” He shrugged. “Might makeover the guest room a bit if I’m going to stay very often.” He grinned. “And make some additions to the garage.”

“Yes, we will work hard, and get everything just right, that you can stay here as long as you like, as much as you want. Whenever you want it,” Bucky said. “And I will learn to cook, and then I will sit around and gaze at you while you work, and feed you.” He made his eyes very wide and round and then fluttered his eyelashes at Tony, batting his eyes like a teenage girl staring at her favorite boyband member.

“Well, that’s very... domestic. What are you... What’s happening right now?”

“Did I not tell you, we would retire and I would sit around and adore you, as you deserve?” Bucky laughed. “There are more ways of adoration than one. Which do you prefer?”

“Oh, okay, you’re joking, I get it. You’d think, as much time as we spent together, I’d have a better handle on your sense of humor, but sometimes...” Tony shook his head, smiling a little and trying not to think of how sweet it would be, if Bucky actually adored him.

Bucky offered Tony another strawberry, and then, when he took, and ate it, Bucky turned Tony’s hand over, displaying his palm. It was as good a hand as any, Tony figured, the fingers did what he demanded of them. If a bit cut and nicked, and oil stains deep in his pores that he never quite got out when he spent a lot of time in the shop. “Or, in this way, I can adore you, if you recall it,” Bucky said, and he breathed out against Tony’s palm, a puff of warm air that was mixed with that red mist, his chi, as he called it, that seeped into Tony’s skin, warming it, loosening the muscles. Bucky rubbed his thumb across his suddenly pliant palm, and then followed that sweep of thumb with a very soft kiss.

Tony’s breath got lost, somewhere between his lungs and his throat. “I don’t... recall that last bit, from before,” he managed to croak. He studied Bucky’s face, trying to read that inscrutable expression.

“There were many rules, at the Wall,” Bucky said. “They required I learn them all. One of them… was against a partnership called _fraternization_. There were many punishments for that crime, that you should trust your combat partner with your heart and soul and chi, as well as your life. Not encouraged. And so, I did not.”

“But you... wanted to,” Tony said carefully. His heart was suddenly pounding hard enough to hurt, and his hand was still in Bucky’s, Bucky’s thumb still stroking lightly, back and forth.

“I didn’t… not at first,” Bucky confessed. “It was… the rules, and rules aren’t… for wanting to change. But things are different. Humans are different. You are messy and delightful, and you rail against that which should be, and want things that are bad for you. And I thought, maybe you-- maybe you, my beautiful creature, might wish for me. And once I thought that -- what could be worse for you than me? -- then I could not unthink it.”

Tony frowned. “You’re not bad for me. You’re _amazing_. You taught me to fight, to survive. You _saved_ me. How could that be bad?” He closed his hand, trapping Bucky’s in his grip. “I didn’t think you could possibly want... But you... you _do_.” He stared at Bucky in amazement.

“Maybe, in time, you will be accepted,” Bucky said. “You, and the others who have been tainted by our chi. You will be… _human_. Or human enough. That will not happen, if you choose to remain my partner. You will forever be something… other.”

“Oh, honey, I’ve _always_ been something _other_. And I’d rather be a mutie with you at my side than a human without you.”

“You… you are the most worthy,” Bucky said. “I would never have been allowed even to see you, but here, I can speak with you, show you everything. It is amazing, and I thank you, so much, for the honor. If you… did like the adoration, perhaps I can do it again.”

Tony laughed, breathless. “I liked it,” he said. He reached up, brushed his fingers down Bucky’s face, stroking over Bucky’s hair, which was softer than he expected, somehow. “I like it a lot.”

“I am delighted to adore you,” Bucky told him, peering up through unfairly thick eyelashes, “wherever, whenever, you wish.” He kissed the inside of Tony’s wrist, then traced his tongue along Tony’s palm until he reached Tony’s fingers, sucking two of them inside his mouth.

Tony let out a low moan. “You-- Oh, god. I adore you, too, you know. Maybe on your homeworld, you’re not special, but here, you’re... You’re _gorgeous_. Beautiful. Perfect.”

“_Other_,” Bucky said. “And you, alone, have seen anything worthy in me. How could I not have wished for you? Right away, it mattered to you, not at all. What, or who, or even, why I was. You cared for me, as a person. Shared all that you had, and much that I did not.” Bucky worked his way up Tony’s arm, then was nuzzling at Tony’s throat, licking the skin behind Tony’s ear.

“You shared with me, too,” Tony pointed out. “You didn’t even complain about getting stuck with the half-sized, insubordinate cadet.”

“_Morsel_,” Bucky said, fondly, nibbling on Tony’s neck, right at the sensitive join where his neck met with his shoulder.

Tony gasped and tipped his head to the side, giving Bucky greater access. “Are we-- Maybe we should take this somewhere more comfortable than the kitchen?”

“The kitchen is very comfortable,” Bucky said. “Nice, sturdy table. Good light. _Blueberries_.” He squeezed one between his thumb and forefinger, and painted the fruit against Tony’s throat, then licked it off.

Tony made some kind of noise. It might have been a whimper. He wasn’t sure. He sagged into Bucky’s grip and gave himself up to Bucky’s explorations. He could explain about beds later, he supposed.

He slid his hands up Bucky’s chest, a caress he might have imagined through a hundred different combat practices. Cupped the back of Bucky’s neck and leaned up to test Bucky’s throat, sampling its taste, trying to tease some sort of reaction out of Bucky.

Bucky lifted Tony up and sat him on the table as if he weighed no more than a plate, stepping into the vee of his thighs. He was rumbling, speaking, his own language, a collection of harsh, clattering consonants and then long, sweet sibilants, almost like singing a song. “So perfect, little morsel.” He tipped his head, resting his forehead against Tony’s, eyes even more liquid crystal than usual. “My most darling, fearless, best friend.”

Tony laughed a little, somewhat breathless. “You say such strange things, but you make it sound so sweet.” He brushed Bucky’s hair back, tucking the braids behind Bucky’s ears. “I think I love you.”

The world might have stopped turning, the entire universe plunging headlong, heedless, into oblivion and Tony wouldn’t have noticed, so pure and fierce was Bucky’s look of shocked pride at Tony’s words. “Do you?” Bucky was quivering, voice shaking. “Tony--” He didn’t let Tony speak for a short eternity, kissing the sounds away as soon as Tony tried to form them, until Tony was doing nothing at all except clinging and letting his mouth be completely possessed, let Bucky’s tongue and teeth unmake him.

It was like flying almost, or rather, gliding, easy and exhilarating, Bucky’s mouth on his, Bucky’s skin under his fingertips, rippling and twitching with every caress. The hard muscle of Bucky’s body pressing against him, the soft warmth cradling him. Tony could have stayed in that moment forever, and been grateful for it. “Bucky,” he gasped, pulling, pressing himself into Bucky’s body, molding them together like clay.

Tony was slowly stripped of his clothes, an inch or more bared at a time, and each time, Bucky stopped to explore with curious fingers or eager tongue, until there was no part of Tony untouched or untested, and he was naked and spread backward on the table like the main course.

Tony had never felt so perfectly centered in a lover’s attentions, so pampered and -- well, _adored_. God, Bucky had been telling him for _years_, and he’d always thought it was a joke, or an exaggeration. He would never get enough of watching Bucky’s face, hungry and nearly worshipful. He brushed his knuckles down Bucky’s cheek. “You look like you want to devour me,” he teased. “Should I pass the salt?”

“I do,” Bucky said. “I will. And you will nourish me, every last lick.” He took one more taste of Tony’s mouth, then slid down, licked at his shoulder, down his chest. Mouthed over the tender skin of Tony’s belly, and then leaned back to take a long, hungry look, finger barely brushing up Tony’s cock, making it quiver. 

Tony gasped, arching into the touch. “Bucky,” he pleaded. Lying back on his wings would get uncomfortable after a while, but for now, they provided a bit of cushioning, a little bit of a prop so he could watch Bucky’s face, reach to stroke his hands over Bucky’s arms and shoulders, whatever he could reach.

Bucky parted Tony’s thighs and then took Tony into his mouth, a slick, wet clutch that engulfed nearly half his length in a single thrust. His hands went to Tony’s hips, encouraging him to push up into that inferno, to satisfy himself with the pliancy of Bucky’s throat.

Tony moved cautiously at first, carefully, quivering with the effort of holding himself back. But Bucky just held tighter, a soft sound like satisfaction rolling from his throat. Tony thrust a little deeper, then, and faster. He curled his hands around Bucky’s wrists, clinging tightly, as if his life depended on it, and let the ache of desperate desire engulf him, drive him deeper and harder, straining toward climax.

He hovered on the sharp, white-hot edge of it for some immeasurable time, seconds or hours, he had no idea, and then spilled over like water spilling through floodgates, crying out hoarsely.

“There you go, my lovely,” Bucky said, and he nuzzled at Tony’s thigh, blowing cooling draughts of air across overheated skin. “Just as beautiful in pleasure as I’d imagined. You have no -- no idea at all -- how many times I visualized it.”

“I might have _some_ idea,” Tony said through panting breaths. Once he was able to breathe properly again, he pushed himself upright and wound his arms around Bucky’s neck. “Now I want to make you feel good.”

Bucky let Tony wrap around him like a winged koala, practically bouncing him against Bucky’s hips. “I would enjoy that,” he decided. “I want to-- look at your pretty wings, touch your feathers. See you spread out above me.”

Tony shivered with pleasure just from the thought of Bucky’s hands on his wings. “Yeah,” he agreed. “Up-- Bedroom. Bed.”

“Hold tight,” Bucky told him, and that breathtaking _squeeze _happened, and Tony found himself just inside the bedroom door, with Bucky not even panting from the effort. He did, however, swat Tony in the direction of the bed, following after and peeling off the remains of his clothing.

“God, you’re gorgeous,” Tony said, watching Bucky crawl after him onto the bed. He pulled Bucky to him for a kiss, deep and heated.

It didn’t take long before Bucky was on his back, with Tony kneeling over him, stradling those amazing thighs. Bucky had their hands linked together, keeping Tony pushed back, and upright, on display like a rare and perfect bird. He rocked his hips up to meet Tony’s skin, cock a thick length between them. “And I think it is you,” Bucky said. “Perhaps we are mirrors, reflecting back at the other. So I see you as best, most perfect, most beautiful, and you, sadly delusional--” He threw back his head, laughing at Tony made a face at him.

Tony’s couldn’t resist smiling, reveling in the sound. All he wanted was to see Bucky so happy, so light and joyful. He rolled his hips, grinding down against Bucky’s heavy cock, and spread his wings as wide as they could stretch, then mantled them, covering them both. Showing off, all of it, a bit, but Bucky had admired Tony’s wings even when they were first partnered.

Bucky stared at him, wide-eyed with delight. Other people had touched Tony’s wings before, but seldom with such wonder, stroking the pinfeathers with gentle fingers. He shivered at every brush of feather against his skin until he was writhing uncontrolled on the bed, body thrusting up at Tony’s, breath hard and heavy.

Tony grinned. “The wings really do it for you, huh?” He thought of Bucky meticulously saving every molted feather, the ones tied into Bucky’s war braids brushing against Bucky’s face and shoulder, and wondered how he had failed to understand Bucky’s feelings.

He curled his hand around Bucky’s cock, stroking it lightly, testing the sensitive spots. He licked a drop of precome from his fingers, curious, and hummed thoughtfully at the slightly metallic taste.

Bucky surged against his hand, whimpering. “Yes,” he said. “Or no. The wings, yes, because they are _yours_. I would like you just as well if they were removed.” He paused a moment, then. “Don’t, though. I like them very much.”

Tony huffed. “I wasn’t planning on it.” He kept stroking Bucky, gradually increasing the pressure, the speed, until Bucky was nearly writhing. “That’s it, gorgeous, that’s perfect, you’re so beautiful...”

Bucky made a single, beautiful cry, arching up into Tony’s grip, and then he came, emotions crashing over that not-quite-human face, mouth hanging open as he spilled over Tony’s fingers, splattered along Tony’s thighs.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Tony sighed. “You’re even more lovely than I imagined.” He leaned over to brush his lips across Bucky’s, a slow, gentle kiss.

“You… are as beautiful as I always knew you would be,” Bucky said, hands under Tony’s wings, fingers exploring the joins where the wings came out from his shoulders, a second set of bones, delicate and sensitive. Bucky was gentle, rubbing at skin that was often sore, and Tony felt like melting into a puddle right there, laying over Bucky’s chest. “You-- you will stay here, with me.” He said it like a statement, but there was so much doubt and need in his voice that Tony’s heart twisted.

“Of course,” Tony said. “Yes, I’ll stay with you.” He smiled, nuzzling at Bucky’s ear. “You’re mine, now.”

“_Morsel_,” Bucky said, approvingly. 

**Author's Note:**

> Linguist notes:
> 
> In Rifter  
T’ denotes belonging  
Nye or Nyeh means “small / insignificant”  
Sta’ruk means nourishment that you eat, as opposed to La’ruk, their normal field rations which are a combination of vitamin supplements and concentrates, which look like cubes of jello  
Therefore, in the Rifter Language, T’nye Sta’ruk (Tony Stark) means “My tiny snack”
> 
> Other Note: weapon Bucky is using is called a Kusarigama, a “chain-sickle”


End file.
